A National Academy of Sciences study (commissioned by a Republican Congressman) demonstrates that the Earth is currently the hottest it has been in some time.... at least for the last 400 years, and probably for the last 2,000 years. The study concludes that greenhouse gases are largely responsible for this, as well as other factors.

The Bush Administration, of course, opposes various pollution control measures, that it contends will cost American jobs.

Well, look: the industrial era started long before George W. Bush became President, and indeed, long before George W. Bush was born. This is an ongoing problem, that has been going on for centuries, though getting worse over the last few decades. Yes, we can certainly fault the Bush Administration for playing politics with science and attempting (with the help of industry lobbyists and shills) to assert that there isn't a problem at all, balderdash that the regular media dignifies because they feel the need to print Karl's faxes verbatim... but in the end, this is a planetary issue that will likely get worse before it gets better as India and China (among others) rapidly industrialize, and the United States over an eight year period is a very, very small part of the overall problem.

We could, of course, take an international leadership role in cutting edge research and amelioration methodologies and technologies, given that this kind of climate change will result in unstable weather ranging from floods to hurricanes to tornadoes to seasonal shifts to God knows what that effect everyone on Earth... if for no other reason, to preserve the trillions and trillions of dollars in infrastructure and everything else invested based on certain climactic assumptions...